Scent
by Co-Quill-Eon
Summary: 'Damon wonders if Elena knows that her brother is gay.' :: Companion fic to 'Believe It' ::


**A/N: Companion story, Believe It, is up.**

**:::::**

Damon wonders if Elena knows that her brother is gay.

Or bisexual, or whatever the hell these crazy kids are calling it nowadays.

Not that that's a bad thing; hell, over one hundred and fifty years, and more than a few 'experimentation' periods later leaves no room for judging when it comes to that front. But he wonders idly how she would react.

And, he wonders, if she would react more or less strongly if she found out it was Tyler Lockwood her dear baby brother is all over. Because he is all over Lockwood, or more accurately, Lockwood is all over him - his scent mingled so intimately at that moment with Jeremy's that Damon can barely separate the two.

Damon doesn't make it a habit to memorize scents; just Stefan's, for obvious reasons, Elena's, for reasons Damon doesn't think about, and Bonnie's, just to know when trouble is headed his way. But he's made it a point to remember how Tyler Lockwood smells, mainly because his scent keeps changing. Not as in his cologne, even though that particular one he usually wears on Thursdays makes Damon's nose twitch, but his inherent smell. Whereas Lockwood used to smell like any normal teenage boy - aforementioned cologne, a tinge of desperation, raging hormones, and, in his case, an insane amount of testosterone - that scent has slowly been evolving, shifting, and now Tyler smells like the forest. Wilderness, little restraint, and... something that makes Damon think of the times his father would let the hounds run free for a while.

Damon's brow furrows slightly at the trace that covers Jeremy's body as the boy enters the kitchen, and gives him a distracted hey that has Damon thinking idly that he's come a long way if his presence in the Gilbert residence doesn't even receive a batted eyelid.

Even though Damon listened as Tyler snuck out Jeremy's bedroom window more than an hour ago, and heard the shower turned on, the scent still lingers on Jeremy's skin faintly, under the clean smell of soap and water.

Elena walks in as Damon tosses the salad for dinner, and she smiles at Jeremy, asking how his day went, if anything interesting happened.

His answers are vague, as to be expected for a teenager who doesn't have enough experience to know that specific details are the key to getting away with near lies. But Elena doesn't seem that suspicious, no more than usual at any rate. Jeremy has set a pattern of being vague, and Damon, after a moment, stops paying attention to their conversation.

He's wondering how Lockwood and Jeremy even managed to put away their pettiness to get this started. Not that he hasn't seen enemies turn things completely around (one hundred and years over here) but that kind of maturity usually doesn't reside in fifteen and sixteen year olds. And then there is the matter of his scent entirely. In all of Damon's years 'alive' he hasn't encountered something like this, but when he thinks harder about it, he realizes that Tyler is beginning to smell more and more like the late Mayor Lockwood...

Mysterious ever changing smells and lingering scents aside, Damon contemplates just telling Elena himself. Not in an obvious way of course, but planting the notion of the idea. He's sure she won't care that much - she loves Jeremy no matter what, that much is obvious - but she'd certainly be surprised to realize that the seemingly tentative, newfound friendship between her brother and Lockwood is way more than she initially thought, or could ever imagine, really. It won't be a _huge _ revelation, but it would be entertaining nonetheless to see it all play out.

For him at least.

His musings are interrupted by the door bell ringing, and he puts the spoons down, smiling back at Jenna, who settles back down into her seat at the counter, to go answer it. The scent hits him before he's even halfway down the hallway, and he's totally unsurprised to find Lockwood himself standing at the door.

Damon gives the boy a smirk and steps aside to let him in. 'Well, hello, you sly dog, you.' His smirk widens at the briefly panicked look that flits over the boy's face, which is covered again by bravado as he brushes by Damon to head into the kitchen.

He wants Stefan to hurry up and get over here already, so they can all sit down at the table. He smiles as he shuts the door behind him.

It's going to be an interesting dinner.


End file.
